And lying there in bed I minded how I once fell in with Jock McGilp, the captain of the smuggler Seagull, a man that sailed the Gull like a witch, and cracked his fingers at the Revenue cutters, and this was the way of it.

When I was a lonely boy, dreaming dreams of ages past and long ago, I had a favourite haunt. I made my way to the graveyard and lay among the long lush grass, for the grass grew nowhere so long or so full of sap as in the graveyard, and I thought of all the great warriors of our glens whose bones had been laid in this place, and shivered to think of the hot red blood stilled in death, and the grass roots creeping downwards like tentacles into the chinks of the wood, and sending up great fat greasy blades that sweated in the sun. I hated the grass roots, and dreamed horribly of them piercing into my heart, and drawing the life-blood to feed the bloated sweaty leaves, but the graveyard had an awful fascination for me. Sometimes old men would wander inside the dyke and move slowly to a rude stone and sit there, and I would hear great sighs bursting into the quiet afternoon, when the sun always beat down. But I liked the old men for being there when the ivy rustled on the ruined old chapel wall when the wind was lost, and the starlings flew affrighted from their nests over the mural tablet that told all men to—

FIR GOD 16—

And I feared God very much, and spoke to Him often in my lonely wanderings, when I saw wee men in green coats among the heather, but oftener on the soft green turfy bits on the hill. And one awful time when the hill road was all silent and the grasshoppers hidden and quiet, an eerie humming came into my ears like a language I could not understand, and I felt myself waiting for something. Round the turn of the hill before you come to the old quarry it came, and I stopped stricken as a rabbit when a snake sways before it, for there came towards me a thing like a dog—but such a dog—its shaggy coat was white and its ears only were black, and as it passed its tongue lolled out, and it looked at me through blue eyes with black rims, and I think I feared that thing more than God. But always before I left the graveyard for my hill road home I crept up to a window, and looked into a part of the chapel that was walled off and dark. Great brambles grew in this space and nettles of phenomenal size, with ugly fleshy-looking clots of seeds on them. A gnarled ash-tree had grown and broken the wall, but over against the broken wall were great stones, and one of these I liked best of all, for it made the blood tingle down my back and my eyes see visions. On a warm Sunday I lay half in the window resting on the sill, for the walls were very thick, and I gazed at the foot of the great stone where a plumed helmet was carved, and a sword in its sheath; and round the helmet and sword battle-gear lay as though the warrior had flung down his harness as he rested. In imagination I had girt me with the sword, the plumed helmet was on my head, when my feet were seized and a rumbling voice cried—

"Can ye read?"

"Ay."

"Read that stane. I'm no' a bawkin."

"BLENHEIM. BAMILLIES. OUDENARDE. MALPLAQUET."

"Thayse the battles; read the man's name.

"MAJOR EWAN McBRIDE."

"Ay, ay; come oot," and I was pulled out of the window, and an enormous man stood before me, looking at me with a queer smile, and scratching his neck till I could hear the hairs of his whiskers crickle and snap like breaking twigs.

"D'ye ken who Major Ewan McBride was?"

"No."

"Well—Dan's faither; he was kilt; he's no in there at a'—it's a peety, for things wid hiv been different.

"Eat ye your pease-brose and keep clear o' the weemen, and ye'll be as great a man as him, but never say a word tae Dan. Says you, when ye go home and see him wi' nobody aboot, says you: 'Jock McGilp was saying the turf's in and the gull's a bonny bird.' Mind it noo; 'The turfs in' and 'the gull's a bonny bird.'"

And that night so long ago, when Dan and I kneeled on the stone-flagged floor beside one another and listened to my uncle pray and pray and pray in Gaelic, I whispered—

"Dan."

"What?"

"Jock McGilp was saying . . ."

Uncle gave a great pause after asking "a clean heart," and Dan whispered—

"Come nearer, ye devil, and don't speak so loud, or a' the servants 'll be damned and sent to hell for lack o' attention."

"Jock McGilp was saying the turf was in and the seagull's a bonny bird."

"Wheest noo and listen, ye graceless deevil. . . ."

For a week after that I never saw Dan, but my uncle got sterner and sterner, and when Dan returned, loud voices I heard in the night and slamming doors, but Dan was whistling among his horses at cock-crow, and told me I took after my mother's folk and would be a man yet. . . .

But on this April Sunday, after the week of ploughing stubble, we lay long and listened to the pleasant rattling of horse chains, and rustling of bedding, when the horses pawed for their morning meal. There was the sun, well up on his day's journey, and a whole day to be and enjoy him in. And we rose and took our breakfast, and daunered to the far fields, and inspected the young beasts, picking out the good ones with many a knowing observation on heads and pasterns and hocks, and then round the wrought land, and over the fields where a drain had choked, and the rushes marked its course. We mapped out how this should be mended and strolled back to the stable, and lay in an empty stall where some hay had been left, and waited until dinner, with the shepherd's dogs lying watching their masters, and the herds and ploughmen telling terrible stories of one Mal-mo-Hollovan. Into this peaceful scene came rushing a lass with the word that the Laird was at church, as he should be, and Belle the gipsy wanted speech wi' the mistress.

"An' why no', my lass?" said Dan; "she'll no' bite the mistress."

"The black eyes o' her, and the air o' her,—speech wi' the mistress, indeed—the tinker!"

"Jean," said Dan, "be canny wi' Belle, or she'll put such a spell on ye that ye'll no' hear your lad whistling ootside your window, and the first thing ye'll ken he'll be inside, and you maybe in your sark."

"Ye ken too much aboot sich truck and trollop and the wey in by windows," cried Jean, her face like the heart o' the fire; for her lad was looking sheepishly at her from the corn-kist.

"Well, well, let Belle alane, or I'll be puttin' mysel' in Tam's place," and poor Tam could only grin with a very red face.

And so it came that Belle made her way to the old room where the mistress, my uncle's wife, was abed, after the birth of her son, about whom the women-folk talked and laughed in corners, and looked so disdainful at poor men-folk, that Dan said—

"It's a peety for the wean, wi' a' these weemen waitin' till he grows up. I'm dootin' he'll be swept oot o' his ain hoose wi' petticoats, and take up wi' the dark-skinned beauties in the far glens, like Esau."

And sorely put out were the women when Dan, referring to the heir, said he'd come in time for the best o' the grass.

"If the colt has got plenty o' daylight below him, and middlin' clean o' the bane, he'll thrive right enough!" The heir of all Nourn a leggy colt! There was nothing but black looks and pursed-up lips till even the easy-going cause o' the change said drily enough: "They're damned ill